Princesses

Princesses:

InstaPundit takes notice of a piece that criticizes women for being "princesses." He comments that he prefers either "Sarah Connor" over a helpless person who wants to be pampered all the time.

One of the key problems in seeing these issues clearly is the disdain in which our ancestors are sometimes held. We've been told so often that women of old were weak, or oppressed, or helpless, that people have just come to believe it.

Here's a story about a princess -- indeed, a Queen.

The Queen of England, who was very anxious to defend her kingdom and guard it from all disturbers, in order to show that she was earnest about it came herself to Newcastle-upon-Tyne. She took up her residence there, to wait for the forces she expected from different parts of the kingdom. The Scots, who were informed that Newcastle was the place of rendezvous of the English army, advanced thither, and sent their vanguard to skirmish near the town; who, on their return, burnt some hamlets adjoining to it. The smoke and flames came into the town....

On the morrow, the King of Scotland, with full forty thousand men, including all sorts, advanced within three short English miles of Newcastle[.]

The Queen ordered the defense from a shorter range, and greater personal danger, than is normally encountered by our general officers today. No one thought this was shocking at the time; it was her duty.

On the day of the battle, she rode out to the army to ensure it was properly formed for the combat:

The Queen of England came to the place where her army was, and remained until it was drawn out in four battalions.... The queen now advanced among them, and entreated them to do their duty well in defending the honor of their lord and king, and urged them, for the love of God, to fight manfully. They promised her they would acquit themselves loyally, to the utmost of their power, perhaps better than if the king had been there in person.

Her name was Philippa of Hainault. Her victory over the Scots earned a mention in Shakespeare. The "she" in these lines is England as a whole, but very readily personified by the Queen who led her:

When all her chivalry hath been in France,
And she a mourning widow of her nobles,
She hath herself not only well defended,
But taken, and impounded as a stray,
The king of Scots; whom she did send to France,
To fill King Edward’s fame with prisoner kings...

These were her arms: